


deep enough to drown

by rosestone



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Slytherin Ron Weasley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:00:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23781994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosestone/pseuds/rosestone
Summary: Most people seem to assume Ron's fellow Slytherins will all fall in behind You-Know-Who without a murmur.Ron doesn't.  And he doesn't plan on letting them go without a fight.
Comments: 12
Kudos: 168
Collections: What Fen Do (Instead of Going Outside), When Death Loves Flamingos





	deep enough to drown

**Author's Note:**

  * For [saiditallbefore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saiditallbefore/gifts).



"Watch where you're going, Weasley," Draco Malfoy snapped, jerking back and brushing his robes off ostentatiously. 

"Why should I when you were the one who walked into me? Maybe it's that big head getting in the way." Ron sneered at him and hurried away. He didn't actually want to get caught up in an argument. All they needed to do was keep up the facade that they hated each other, after all.

Once he was ensconced in his dorm, door locked and sealed with every privacy spell he knew, he fished the scrap of parchment out of his pocket. Well - it'd looked like a scrap, anyway. It sprang out into a thick roll of parchment, and Ron couldn't help but regret the day he'd pointed out that Malfoy could just shrink or transfigure his reports into something more innocuous-looking, rather than coming up with some convoluted code spell. Malfoy had seemed disappointed at the time - in hindsight, Ron was pretty sure that was because hidden deep under the layers of money, bigotry and general arse-ness was a deep love for spying - but after that he'd given up on trying to be concise.

It would've been more impressive if it hadn't meant Ron had so much more work to do.

He skimmed the report, taking notes as he went. It was one part Malfoy delicately discerning what their various pureblood classmates really thought about blood purity - not something he would've thought Malfoy was capable of, but apparently he'd realised if he used his father's name as a blunt instrument nobody would notice him being sneaky in the background - and one part the much harder job of working out where everybody's _parents'_ loyalties lay, with the usual sprinklings of half-hearted excuses for _his_ parents. 

Ron could understand it, kind of. He'd had more than a few arguments with his own parents after he got Sorted. But there was a very big difference between excusing his parents for thinking all Slytherins except for him were evil and excusing them for - however accidentally - setting a cursed diary on him.

He dropped the paper, staring at the pile of textbooks on his desk. This was something he'd have to do something about eventually; there was only so long he could keep ignoring it. Back when he'd decided he was tired of being on the bottom of the social ladder in Slytherin and it was time to actually do something about it, he'd figured the best way to do that was to be dependable. Some of his housemates could get away with paying people off when they abandoned their promises, but he didn't have that kind of power. He had to build it, from the ground up, and that meant making sure people _knew_ he'd do what he'd said. Sure, he didn't actually know _how_ he was going to manage everything he'd promised - helping Tracey get out of the social rut that being a halfblood in Slytherin had given her had been easy enough once _he'd_ gotten out of that rut, and his collection of information on various purebloods throughout Hogwarts would hopefully be a good enough bribe for his parents' anti-Dark Lord group that they'd agree to get Theo away from his father before he was forced to become a Death Eater, but he really had no idea how he was going to convince the Parkinsons to make Pansy their heir or stop Daphne's parents from pushing her into a marriage she didn't want - but the really complicated ones were, for the most part, future problems. Daphne's parents wouldn't start seriously looking for husbands for her until seventh year, probably, and there wasn't much point digging around the Parkinsons until Pansy had managed to bring up her grades enough that she looked like a serious contender. He had time to work that out.

Assuming, of course, that convincing Hermione Granger to give Pansy tutoring sessions didn't unleash some further complication into his life. He had a sneaking suspicion it would; she was alarmingly interested in politics for a Gryffindor, and half the reason Pansy was so determined to take her family's reins was because she disagreed with her grandfather's political decisions. They'd fallen into a mildly antagonistic friendship rapidly, now that they'd stopped trying to curse each other every time they met, and Merlin only knew what _that_ would spawn. It'd be fine, though. He was a Slytherin. He was _adaptable_. He could adapt to whatever political organisation, lobbying group, or banned spell study group they ended up creating.

Malfoy, though... Malfoy was a problem he'd have to solve sooner than later, if only because Ron was - sort of - the reason he'd ended up in this position. He hadn't _made_ Malfoy spend the entirety of their first year picking on him and generally trying to make his life a misery, but he'd sniped back, which had probably worsened things. And it hadn't occurred to him to wonder why Malfoy had abruptly stopped partway into second year. He'd had more important things to worry about, after all; Ginny had been convinced somebody had stolen her diary and had wanted him to help her find out who'd taken it. He'd wondered why she was so upset about it, of course, but it hadn't quite clicked until Malfoy had confessed to him in third year. Had told him what'd really happened in the Chamber of Secrets. Had begged for help.

_"My parents told me he was a good person. They said he wanted what was best - not just for us, but for everyone with magic. They said the Ministry had lost its way, and sometimes you have to break a few Bowtruckles to find good wand-wood, and - and I believed them. They're my parents! And - Dumbledore thinks he'll come back. And so did Tom, and if it hadn't been for Potter - what if there's more diaries out there? What if he actually manages to come back next time? They'll want me to follow him like they do, and I can't. I can't hurt people like he wants to. And you've been helping people, Weasley, don't think I haven't noticed, and I - I -"_

He should've said no. Or offered to help without any strings attached. It would've been kinder, more like the person he was trying to be; it would've been fairer, too, because that diary had been in Ginny's hands. She could have been the one down in the Chamber, alone and dying. Hell, maybe the only reason Malfoy had survived had been because the diary had recognised he might be useful. Ginny might have been long gone by the time Harry had found her, a thought that'd never failed to make him cold and nauseous.

But he hadn't been thinking straight. He'd resented Malfoy for making it so much harder for him in Slytherin early on, and for planning to use Ginny's secrets against him, and he'd been ambitious enough to think he might be able to change the path of any future war, and the information Malfoy'd had - the _access_ \- even if he'd changed his mind later, it would've made things so much easier for Ron. So he'd said yes. Acted like asking him for information was a sop to Malfoy's pride, not one of the pillars holding up his increasingly delicate networking house of cards. And just... kept doing it.

You-Know-Who was back. Potter had said so, and - well, Ron didn't know him that well, really. He'd shied away after Ron ended up in Slytherin. Seemed like a decent bloke, though. And not like he'd lie about something this big. Ron's parents believed him, too, to the point of joining that secret Dark Lord-fighting club of theirs. They didn't seem to want to talk about it, though given the way Ginny and the twins had reacted, Ron couldn't blame them. Running off to fight Death Eaters would just get them hurt; at least Ron was helping in a way that wouldn't actually lead to him being on the wrong end of a Death Eater's wand.

Malfoy, though. His parents were in deep; he knew it, even if he'd kept making excuses. Sooner or later they'd want him to make his loyalties clear, and then what? He wasn't a good enough liar to keep _that_ kind of secret - but he wasn't like Theo, either, who'd realised a long time ago that his father saw him as something closer to a possession than a son and decided that the sooner he got out, the better. Malfoy loved his parents. Not enough to let them make him a murderer - but enough that he might stay with them long enough to get himself killed.

It wouldn't necessarily be Ron's fault. Not if he'd tried to get Malfoy out. But he'd still feel like it was.

He needed a plan. He needed _leverage_ , something he could use to convince Malfoy to run when it started getting tight. But if knowing his father had given Ginny the diary hadn't been enough to scare him - enough to make him rethink his life, sure, even rethink his _prejudices_ , which wasn't something Ron had thought he was capable of before then - what would? Probably something beyond Ron's ability to influence. Coming face to face with You-Know-Who. Or seeing someone getting murdered. Or being asked to help.

And then there was the _other_ problem. What if Ron went to his parents' organisation and told them what he'd spent the last few years doing, handed over all that carefully collated information and told them about his spy, and asked them to get him out - and they said no? What if Malfoy was more valuable to them as a spy?

He couldn't quite believe it could happen. Malfoy was sure things would break out into the open sooner than later, and Ron's parents wouldn't have stood for _him_ spying on Death Eaters; surely they wouldn't try to make some other child do it. Sure, Malfoy might be irritating and deliberately abrasive and far too quick to resort to insults, but he didn't deserve that.

Hell, maybe _that_ was how he ought to convince him to run: bare his emotions and his worries, drop that cool facade he'd spent so much time perfecting and emote in a way Malfoy never would have expected. At the very least, it ought to make him horrifically uncomfortable, which would be entertaining to watch. In the best case... maybe it'd break through. Maybe knowing someone else would care if he got himself killed would be enough.

Not that Ron _cared_ about him. Really. But you couldn't share a common room with someone for five years without starting to like them, just a little, even if they were the most irritating person on the face of the planet. Which Malfoy frequently was.

Even if he'd still hated him, though - and he wasn't quite sure when that had happened; he'd hated him in second year, hadn't he? And even in third after Malfoy had told him about the diary? - he wouldn't have left him to You-Know-Who. He thought he could snatch up anyone he liked from Slytherin. Convince them all there was nothing greater they could do than serve him, and tear down every one of Magical Britain's institutions while they were at it so he could have that little bit more power. Ron wasn't sure it'd even occurred to him that there might be Slytherins who _didn't_ want to take the Mark.

Well. _He_ wasn't going to. And he'd be damned if he let any of his fellow Slytherins get forced into it.

If he'd said something like that to Ginny, she would've told him he was getting a swelled head. If the twins had found out, they'd have tried to shrink it for him, in the most public and embarrassing way possible. And he could admit it, even if it was just to himself: making some kind of personal pledge to protect everyone from You-Know-Who _was_ ridiculous. He was fifteen, and he _wasn't_ the Boy Who Lived, and this was probably something he should've left to the professionals.

Well, they weren't doing anything. And it wasn't like they were going to care about the Slytherins anyway, not when sometimes it seemed like everyone except him - _including_ his housemates - thought they didn't have any kind of choice.

If he'd gone to Gryffindor, the house everyone had expected him to join, he would've called it stubborn bravery. Hufflepuff, loyalty; Ravenclaw, a cool assessment of the fact that they couldn't let a quarter of the country's population - minimum - join the other side.

Ron was a Slytherin. And proud of it, something he never could have imagined back in first year when he'd taken the Hat off and realised just where his resentment of being just another Weasley had brought him.

He'd call it ambition.


End file.
